Bug#295166: Partitioner bug
Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> writes:
> On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 11:23:52PM +0100, Kero-Chan wrote:
>> :(
>> Well. I know I'm saying it for the second time, but:
>> This is not x86 BIOS/Boot-loader stuff. Slackware 10.1 works on the
>> same box (with LILO and GRUB too).
>> This is Debian specific.
>> And I said this too, but I say again it's not only LVM that doesn't work. :/
>> Well, Some Debian people listen please, because Sarge cannot be
>> released with this bug :(
>> Why is there a BTS if bug reporters are not believed "User error, Bad
>> hardware, ..."?
>
> Well, it clearly works on my powerpc pegasos/chrp box, so it is
> either a grub problem, a broken MBR partition table problem, or a
> problem with your bios.
It also works on i386 and amd64.
Booting problems are almost always one of two things:
- bios problems - Grub / Lilo fails
- mkinitrd problems - Unable to mount root device
I have a few suggestions and warnings for you, things to try out or
avoid:
- Don't put / on LVM.
The Debian LVM package + kernel headers still do not support making
a snapshot or pvmoving the / partition. Also /etc/lvm/backups on lvm
doesn't realy help if you ever have a problem. You need a /boot
partition anyway so why not make it a bit bigger and make it /?
- With grub make sure the order of bios disks grub detects matches
what your bios has configured. If you have a second harddisk or usb
stick or something as first boot device the hda won't be (hd0) when
booting for example.
- With lilo the same thing. Sometimes you have to tell lilo that the
order of disks in the bios differs, that hda is 0x81 in the bios for
example.
- Check bios settings for the harddisk, check the geometry in the
bios, if LBA is on or not. Compare that with what fdisk shows under
linux. Try forcing LBA in grub or the various geometry settings in
lilo. Try a compressed map in lilo too (if not default).
- Keep /boot (or / if no /boot exists) in the first 518 MB of the
harddisk (you did at first but keep it that way).
- Create yourself a grub boot floppy (or cd) and install grub directly
from the grub shell. Booting into grub will preserve any wiredness
the bios has while from inside linux grub has to guess.
A grub floppy / cd is actualy a good thing to have anyway. Never
leave the house without one :))))
- If all else fails install Fedora to get the bootloader working. Then
install debian preserving Fedoras /boot [don't mount it as /boot
either] partition and tell Debian to work without bootloader. Before
rebooting the D-I mount the Fedora /boot, copy the debian kernel and
initrd and add a boot entry for them.
MfG
Goswin
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